Stats and Rap

Eminem: Infinite Potential

Eminem’s first release Infinite is an oft forgotten album that some believe may be his best lyrical effort. This poses an interesting case study since Eminem is widely considered to be one of the best, most innovative rhymers of all-time. Would his best lyrical effort produce numbers high Rhyme Density scores (the statistic used to measure rhyming efficiency)? Quantitatively assessing the raw rhyming abilities in this album is the purpose of this article. Below are the rhyming statistics for each song.

His writing throughout is unbelievable. Even his sub-par efforts (313, Jealousy Woes II) produce values most rappers would consider an apex. As a listener of this album, the sub-par production and lack of overall direction in his music is disheartening but the potential is evident. It was only a matter of molding the young artist from Detroit.

Eminem eventually did land with a great producer (Dr. Dre), learned the subtleties in creating music that had mass appeal and coupled with the personality and charisma necessary in this industry, he would go on to become one of the greatest rappers of all time. The potential was always there. It was only a matter of landing in the right situation with the right people behind him.

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4 thoughts on “Eminem: Infinite Potential”

The thing is though, underground Rapper’s / Snob’s claim that Dr. Dre was the death of Eminem as a serious lyrical rapper. Claiming his lyrics were better on Infinite than anything he’s done since. (This is Pre-Recovery, we haven’t heard this since recovery was released) People like myself who are hip hop heads, run into these people at all the hip hop watering holes. Is there way to test whether there is any truth to that? Also, there’s no argument that Recovery is the most personally unfiltered, unrelenting, emotionally grueling album Eminem has released. For me, that, along with the sick lyrical gymnastics he display’s, is enough to make it his best work ever, But statistically, how does it stack up to MMLP and Infinite? This is the debate amongst Shady listeners now… Would be interested in finding that out?

Eminem was at his absolute best, from a rhyming POV, on Infinite. Slim Shady LP he completely changed his style up and his rhyming suffered for it. After that, his rhyming went back up and stabilized at a high value for the rest of his career. In fact, there isn’t much of a difference between Relapse/Recovery from a rhyming POV.

But for sure on Slim Shady LP his rhyming went downhill. Probably because of his approach to music-making changing since he landed a big deal. I’m going to write an all-encompassing Eminem post for the Eminem fans. He’s a GREAT case study.

I’m not done reading through this yet so I don’t really understand how your test work, and what exactly their measuring just yet. I gotta catch-up. But Yeah ya that would def be awesome, cause I don’t understand How exactly, switching ones style up, reduces their rhyming, at all… like in what way?

I don’t know how it works out statistically, But IMO Lyrically, MMLP, & Infinite, can’t compete with Recovery. The first verse of On Fire, pisses all over anything he wrote on MMLP.. Not to mention, didn’t he spit the first Triple Entendre on Recovery?

[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Lily_Russell, Lily_Russell. Lily_Russell said: Here's the EMINEM Entry on Rap Metrics > http://bit.ly/9Y4jwi What do U think about what he says in the comments?? #TEAMSHADY @Slim_Shady […]